3 November 2014

The April Theses is a classic
document, not because it is polished (it is rough), but because of its impact
at a moment of history. It was given by Lenin verbally. The written version
(download linked below) was prepared very shortly afterwards.

Lenin arrived in Petrograd
(later Leningrad; now St Petersburg) barely a month after the February, 1917
revolution which had overthrown the Tsar. A bourgeois republican government was
installed that had the intention of continuing the disastrous intra-Imperialist
war in which Russia was involved against Germany and other countries. This is the war known to bourgeois historians
as the First World War, the one that started in 1914 and ended in 1918. South
Africa was also involved in it.

It was among those few
individuals and small organisations who opposed the Imperialist war in South
Africa that the need for our communist party was first seriously raised. The
Communist Party of South Africa was formed by admission to the Communist
International in 1921 – the same Communist International that Lenin called for
in the April Theses in 1917. Thesis 10
demands “A new
International.”

“We must take the initiative in creating a
revolutionary International, an International against the social-chauvinists
and against the ‘Centre’,” it says.

The Third International (also called Communist International or
Comintern) was duly established in 1919.

The “social-chauvinsists” of different countries (e.g. Germany, Britain,
France and Italy as well as Russia) had in 1914 supported the Imperialist war
against each other, thus betraying the Second International. But the Russian
Bolsheviks and the German Spartacists had opposed the war, and had supported
proletarian internationalism.

The term “revolutionary defencism” was a code for the further
continuation of the Russian war policy, which Lenin clearly opposes in Thesis 1.

The “April Theses” are short
and so do not require a long introduction. But one can usefully highlight the
following:

Thesis 2 says “The
specific feature of the present situation in Russia is that the country is
passing from the first stage of the revolution — which, owing to the
insufficient class-consciousness and organisation of the proletariat, placed
power in the hands of the bourgeoisie — …

“This
peculiar situation demands of us an ability to adapt ourselves to the special
conditions of Party work among unprecedentedly large masses of proletarians who
have just awakened to political life.”

There are echoes of this
situation in South Africa today.

Thesis 4 says “As long
as we are in the minority we carry on the work of criticising and exposing
errors and at the same time we preach the necessity of transferring the entire
state power to the Soviets of Workers' Deputies, so that the people may
overcome their mistakes by experience.”

This led to the slogan “All Power to the Soviets”, and Thesis 5 then says “to return to a parliamentary republic from the Soviets of Workers'
Deputies would be a retrograde step.”

Thesis 8 says: “It is not
our immediate task to "introduce" socialism, but only to bring social
production and the distribution of products at once under the control of the
Soviets of Workers' Deputies.”

In other words, the bourgeois
dictatorship was to be replaced at once by a dictatorship over the
bourgeoisie.

Thesis 9 proposes
to change the Party’s name from “Social Democrat” (RSDLP) to “Communist Party.”

So much of this did come to
pass, as we know, that it is difficult to imagine that Lenin’s support for
these demands at the time, among the leadership and even among the strictly
Bolshevik leadership, was small.

But what we have noted
before, and which was manifest at the Second and Third Congresses of the RSDLP,
applied again. Lenin knew how the base of the Party was constructed and how it
was reproducing itself. Hence he was able to be bold. He knew that the cadre
force of the Bolsheviks as a whole, and potentially the entire working masses
of Russia, were behind his proposals, or soon would be. And so it came to pass.

Proposition 4: the same laws of economy apply to this specific type of companies, as they apply to all kinds of capitalist companies

Corollary to proposition 4: proposition 4 is what your blogs, texts seem not to see.

Proposition 5: your blogs are excellent in technical economy, the problematic is seen, the problems are seen, the thread, the texture and the cloth of argumentation is generally well maintained. The fabric of your texts is very good.

Proposition 6: deepen your analysis of Marx's law of the tendencial falling of the rate of profit, demonstrate that shortly, if not already, surplus value equals zero or negative numbers. Further, demonstrate that CAPITAL will equal zero or negative values. Demonstrate that accumulation doesn't work for the capitalist class itself, even more with their own system of redistribution, by linking this to the law of the tendencial falling of the rate of profit. Demonstrate two laws, within the capitalist system itself: that capital already is, or will shortly be, equal to zero or negative values, that surplus value already is, or will shortly be, equal to zero or negative values.

Proposition 7: peaceful capitalism doesn't work either. And imagine the capitalist class on their own planet, not ours, not here. even if some capitalists won all the wars they wanted, capitalism would still not work for capitalist leaders and capitalist populations themselves.

Demonstration of proposition 7: 8000 years of superiors and inferiors and the result is this? This crisis. For the so-called superiors? read prop.5, read prop.3, read prop.4 and corollary to proposition 4.

Proposition 8: the current, final, crisis of capitalism has been lasting since, let's situate it like that, january 2009. it has lasted for five years and 9 months. And will never end. Capitalist leaders and capitalists populations will shortly, if they have not already, see their wages, salaries, rents, funds, prices, stock and financial markets, fraudulent or not, narco-money, profits, false currency, ficticious capital, robberies, exploitation, enslavement, debt leverage, - the United States are going to lend money to themselves? What REAL money? - , feudal or barbaric revenues, investments returns, surplus value, etc, simply put, CAPITAL, reduced to zero or negative values.

Proposition 9: we leave to you, and all who want to participate in solidarity, the technical, economical demonstration of what is here begun to be demonstrated.

Proposition 10: propositions 1 to 10 are not understandable without reading some of the texts of the websites quoted above, especially the texts about economy and about wars.

Proposition 11: your texts have to be read widely, well-diffused, read by many. You may reproduce this text, these propositions freely. Search and diffuse other blogs and texts with the same problematic.

Proposition 12: the writing of this text, of these propositions is not voluntary, it is determined by the situation of the world.

Corollary to Proposition 12: proposition 12 is true, sincerely. This text is caused by hunger, poverty, a reflex of life against the possibility of wars, the current situation of what we are hallucinating, “perceiving” - it is not real perception - in the world.